Lit: A Memoir

I found this book even more far-reaching and important than The Liars Club! It is one of the most candid and useful memoirs having to do with recovery that I have encountered...and I am sixty-four years old. Mary Karr is honest, skilled and most interesting as she describes relationships and events in her life. I am so grateful that I took the chance and purchased this wonderful book! I would have missed so much otherwise! Fred Lippert

This is a fascinating memoir as writer Mary Karr obviously has come a long way. In Texas her parents were alcoholics who when sober were psychotic, but when drunk were beyond the fringe. However, much of that period is in her previous autobiographies The Liars' Club as a preadolescent and Cherry as a teen. Instead Ms. Karr picks up her saga in her late teens and takes it to her current age of fifty years old. She left for college on the west coast, but though bored tried to desperately to prove she belonged at school and with her boyfriend's affluent parents. Like her parents she turned to alcohol to numb her past so those demons would not harm her present. When she became a devout Catholic Ms. Karr feels that changed her emotionally so that she can feel good about living inside her skin as even Harvard failed to give her the inner confidence of belonging she desperately sought. Well written with incredible insight and yet filled with self deprecating humor, Mary Karr explains her obsessive human need for self actualization and acceptance. Ms. Karr's third memoir looks deep at herself seemingly even more so than before; perhaps because this time the adult cannot use the unintended consequences of the shield of a child (The Liars' Club) or a teen (Cherry ) to garner empathy from her readers. This is a winner of a courageous person overcoming her roots to make it in her mind. Harriet Klausner

Having read "The Liars' Club" and "Cherry" I had great expectations for "Lit", which were fulfilled. Karr's bitter honesty about her self appraisal, her life, and desires keeps your nose in the book. I had no idea that Karr had carried this tremendous weight for so long. Hats off to her, and hope her telling of this difficult story releases some of her demons she has kept at bay for so long. This book will significantly effect many who read it.

Anyone who read The Liar's Club and Cherry has probably already bought or borrowed a copy of Lit, Karr's their memoir, which takes her from college to marriage, parenthood and divorce. A genetic donation from her alcoholic parents lands her in a mental institution, which she survives. Her son's curiosity about religion awakens her own, somewhat begrudging, faith. Karr is an entertaining, yet earnest storyteller, as exemplified by the book's title, meaning someone drunk on booze or literature or both. She records conversations and event details more clearly than most people living in a fog of liquor. The grace and vigor of the writing could only from from Mary Karr, poet and Texan.

It may seem as though the memoir genre has been thoroughly strip-mined, but "Lit" is by Mary Karr -- the progenitress of the category -- and is just as bone-deep honest and moving as her first autobiographical volume, "The Liar's Club". It's a must read for anyone in recovery, or has struggled with addiction, not to mention co-dependency issues. And if you think your family is bizarre or disfunctional, this book is definitely for you. Karr's gifts as a poet shine through in this book -- I've been recommending it to everyone I know.

I loved this book. The writing in particular was outstanding. I don't normally find myself reading memoirs but Lit almost seemed like I was reading a novel. This is my first time reading Mary Karr and I now want to read The Liars Club.

Lit is Karr's third memoir, and it's her best. That's saying a lot, as her first, The Liars' Club, pretty much set the standard for the contemporary memoir. She is witty without being overly clever. She is moving without being sentimental. She has startling insight into what it means to be a mother, a drinker, an ex-drinker, a catholic, a writer, but most of all, a human. This book is better than the slew of memoirs that come out each year because it doesn't depend on the shock value of its content. As some other reviewers have pointed out, there are memoirs that have lower "rock bottoms" and crazier events. Those comments miss the point. We don't read memoirs (at least I don't) for an accounting of extraordinary circumstances, but for an extraordinary accounting of common human experience. Lots of us have dealt with alcoholism, spirituality, motherhood, etc. But few of us have Karr's gift for metaphor, her insight into what makes these experiences important, her ability to simultaneously take us on a journey through memory while taking apart and examining the machinery through which we remember. Karr's self-narrative is also about the ways in which we create ourselves through memory--and this makes it universal. I'm an avowed atheist, and I was moved by Karr's journey out of alcoholism and towards God. She is not preachy and Lit is not a "woe is me" pity party. She is a brilliant story teller who can write a sentence like nobody's business.

This is the hard one, the adult recollection of an adult's embarrassing failures. Mary Karr confronts her alcoholism and explains the faith that saved her - perhaps an unpopular point of view now among academics, but that it is what it is makes it a better read.

There unfortunatley are a million Marys but few that can put it to words and creat a story. I could not put it down.

Parts were well done while parts truly dragged. The addiction story rang true tho and for that.....i give it a 3

Don't waste your money.

I couldnt finish the book. Lacked a sense of purpose from the start.

I woudn't waste my time on that book! It was to edgy kept going off topic and too depressing!

This is an insightful portrayal of a life complicated by alcoholism, quite a page turner. I would highly recommend this book. She sheds light on the struggles she went through and shares with the reader things she learned along the way. For those who find themselves grabbing a glass or three of wine this book is a refreshing wake-up call.

Karr's portrayal of the characters in her life is honest and believable. Her choices of words & phrases make this memoir, to me, as her descriptions of people, places, and events make you feel as if you are with them always as the story unfolds. I appreciate her honesty and candor, as well as her ability to be so imperfectly human. It is beautiful. Only a poet could incorporate such depth and precision into the imagery and emotion of a book...thanks Mary! I related so well to your dry wit and crippling cynicism, as well as your ultimate resurrection.

I have family members with some of the same issues and most likely similar stories. It felt so good to be able to get into Mary Karr's head and try to understand what she must have been going through. You don't often find books like this written so well -- they are usually too preachy and the writing is dry. But Lit is a page-turner as well as life changing book.

I am a fiction writer and when I turn to nonfiction, a book only has a few pages to prove its worth. 'Lit' taught me more about life and writing than most novels can. Karr's writing is beautiful; I am envious of her prose. But more importantly, that mastery of craft informed how much I cared about the narrator and her story -- and it is a moving story you won't soon forget.

I loved this book, I couldn't put it down. I also enjoy her other two cherry, and liars club.

How many times have you said that you could write a book about your family? Well somebody did. The result is a page turner that will remind you that you are not alone in how chaotic family life can be. For anyone who still feels bound by their anger, guilt, hurt or pain from their family, I also recommend "When God Stopped Keeping Score." I thought that the book was just about forgiveness, I soon learned, it was about so much more than that. I was about how you should deal with friends, family and yourself and more importantly, how to keep these relationships strong when things go wrong. Having read it, I feel like a better person. Maybe it is because this book spoke to me and not down to me. I have read a lot of books that was written like I didn't know anything. What the author of "When God Stopped Keeping Score" does is talk to you like a friend. I needed that. You will understand why when you read it. "When God Stopped Keeping Score" is available here on BN.com.

Long, sometimes grueling account of a woman's struggle with herself as well as those around her. Her descent into alcoholism and loss of connectedness to her son and husband is painful to read. She does not spare herself in her self-appraisal.

This is the third book Mary Karr has written about her life. It is not necessary to know anything about her first two to understand this one. Her background and upbringing defy normal reality, but she makes it so easy to read about with her sense of humor and stamina, in the face of the worst situations, that her experiences almost seem commonplace and the people who have been so destructive in her life, do not seem hateful, but rather likable, although terribly flawed. I found Lit to be a very absorbing book. If the author didn't have that special gift of putting words on paper to draw you into her milieu, without the horrifying effects of it, the book might be near unreadable. Each time you learn about one of her awful life experiences you are flabbergasted, thinking, how could someone survive this? When she does, and goes on to face another even more difficult situation which she somehow muddles through, you are in awe of her strength in the face of the horrifying odds against her. Mary Karr overcomes the adversity in her life with unbelievable courage and perseverance Her survival is a testimony to her indomitable spirit.

Memoir bravely and honestly written. Interesting and inspiring for all especially for those with childhood issues haunting them into adulthood!

I found Mary's journey to sobriety honest and intriguing. She gives the reader plenty to think about.

LIT

Waits